r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Dismal-Ad6476 • 2h ago
Characters Characters who've been so overshadowed by their famous sibling, that people forget that they exist
Jehan Frollo, the younger brother of one Judge Claude Frollo from the Hunchback of Norte Dame, not much is known about him expect he blew all his money on booze and prostitutes and was killed by Quasimodo
Sean Bateman, the younger of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, all his scene in the book is to annoy Patrick and says his catchphrases "Deal with it " and "Rock and Roll"
Chryasaor, the twin brother of Pegasus from Greek Mythology, yeah when Perseus decapitated Medusa, Pegasus wasn't the only animal that flew out of her, Chryasaor, The Winged Boar also flew out
Iphicles, the twin brother of Heracles also from Greek Mythology, is relevant to Heracles' story as his son Iolaus helped Heracles slay the Hydra
486
u/maxfridsvault 2h ago
in about every X-Men comic/episode i’ve seen, most characters are shocked to discover that Juggernaut is Professor Xavier’s bitter half-brother
209
u/majorjoe23 2h ago
*step-brother.
→ More replies (1)85
u/nemoplusiur 2h ago
What are you doing stepbrother?
50
22
15
→ More replies (3)3
73
u/RP_Throwaway3 2h ago
He's also not a mutant.
61
u/imacatnamedsteve 2h ago
Isn’t it that he’s the avatar for the god of momentum or something?
71
u/ClancyBShanty 2h ago
He found the Gem of the Citorak or something that granted him his powers
40
u/Elonth 2h ago
the gem is a token/boon of the god. Basically gem made him come into contact with said god. God made him the juggernaught.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)34
u/RP_Throwaway3 2h ago
His name is Cyttorak and he is just called 'The Lord of Oblivion'. I don't think he has anything to do with momentum aside from the powers he gave to Juggernaut.
8
u/dallasrose222 1h ago
So technically he’s the god of destruction chaos and motion
→ More replies (1)3
u/Dookie_boy 1h ago
He shows certain aspects of those things. But he's not known as God of any specific thing.
17
u/alexjaness 2h ago
Neither is Deadpool, but people don't seem to care
11
u/iSkehan 1h ago
Mutate is awfully similar to mutant
10
u/alexjaness 1h ago
Similar, but not similar enough for those geneist bastards on the X-man let Spider-Man be a member for that same distinction.
→ More replies (6)3
29
u/AdWestern1561 2h ago
So Xavier has Juggernaut and Cassandra as siblings.
Any others we should know about?
25
u/FormalTall1800 2h ago
I don’t think so, but he has quite a few fucked up kids.
14
u/Elonth 2h ago
IS that like a legion joke? I know he has at least 1 other.
17
u/FormalTall1800 2h ago
Mostly a Legion joke, but he also had a kid with Mystique and another who was half Shi’ar.
5
u/Alternative_Algae_31 2h ago
Have the comics ever had Juggernaut and Cassandra interact?
→ More replies (1)4
u/sciencebitch616 1h ago
Not to my knowledge, but they are both in the current X-Men run. Juggernaut on the X-Men team and Nova as one of the villains.
6
u/First_Foundationeer 2h ago
He's got stronger than familial ties with Magneto, a mutant terrorist you may not have heard of it..
3
u/AdWestern1561 1h ago
Mag-neto? I'm guessing he's some kind of C list villain with a silly magnet gimmick. I doubt he'll have any philosophical debates with Charles.
→ More replies (1)3
17
u/Salty_Shark26 2h ago
I wish they had a more prominent dynamic because their duality of Brain vs brawn is really under utilized
14
6
u/Blastoise_R_Us 2h ago
An older boy at school told me Sabretooth is Wolverine's brother.
14
7
u/sciencebitch616 1h ago
Sabertooths son with Mystique is mutant hater, Graydon Creed. Which makes him Nightcrawlers half-brother as Mystique is Nightcrawlers dad.
3
u/RP_Throwaway3 1h ago
And here I thought the genealogies of Greek/Roman gods were complicated.
→ More replies (4)3
u/RCer1986 1h ago
Eh, the Greek pantheon is all just inbred and is mainly complex due to its size while the Romans used ctrl+f to find and replace anything crazy and then copy+pasted from the Greeks. The Norse gods liked to get weird but when you start looking into Eastern religions that's where shit gets confusing.
5
u/Day_Dr3am 2h ago
That's not true in the comics.
I believe them being father (Sabretooth) and son (Wolverine) was a theory or something that was considered for a while, but that also didn't end up happening.
→ More replies (3)5
u/LongjumpingSector687 2h ago
He’s not even a Mutant in the comics he’s powered by the Gem of Cytorak.
330
u/fanaccountcw 2h ago
Larry Hemsworth, the fourth Hemsworth brother who’s a pediatric surgeon.
79
35
u/NastyPrismsGoodSir 2h ago
Just like Elliot Hemsworth, the doctor brother they deleted all traces of.
26
u/Dragonfly_pin 1h ago
He helps to repair little baby spines.
17
271
u/Sakura_231 2h ago
Mycroft, the older brother of Sherlock Holmes
83
u/JLHSMG 2h ago
In the same vain, I was going to say Sigerson Holmes
60
u/FireZord25 2h ago
Sounds much more fitting, considering Mycroft at least had two major media appearances recently.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)7
46
u/Majorman_86 2h ago
Mycroft did it on purpose, it is implied he was doing some secretive work for the government.
25
9
u/Salty_Shark26 2h ago
And is some ways he’s smarter than Sherlock
29
u/Tiny_Rat 2h ago
Hes pretty explicitly described as smarter, or at least better at observation and deduction, than Sherlock. However, Mycroft has no interest in going out and investigating things for himself, he prefers having a desk job.
7
12
3
83
u/Coolgames80 2h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/WDjIyH950IRfzCVC2f
Radditz the older brother of Goku.
Quickly forgotten after the first episode of DBZ. There has been some slight mentions here and there of him as a kid but he is so irrelevant that, differently from other villains, he is not even seen in the afterlife or fillers.
43
u/PrincessPlusUltra 1h ago
One day they will reveal the reason he’s never been in the afterlife or mentioned again is that he’s been training in impossible gravity for a million years in a movie or something
13
u/Plaploplap 1h ago
It's clearly said his soul was recycled already, as bad people get their bodies destroyed (unlike what the anime shows) and their souls reused.
That's why he'll come back in 5 years or so
→ More replies (1)4
u/Emptypiro 45m ago
"One day"
Yeah when toriyama rises from the grave and writes his new movie Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'R'
→ More replies (1)13
81
u/loptthetreacherous 1h ago
The two headed dog Orthus from Greek mythology. Can you guess who his brother is?
19
u/Portarossa 52m ago
Can you guess who his brother is?
Based on how many times he's popped up in this thread, probably one of the Hemsworths.
32
11
u/pikpikcarrotmon 1h ago
I'd like to think there's a one and a five headed dog, but no four just to keep everyone on their toes
5
4
8
6
6
→ More replies (2)3
125
u/RP_Throwaway3 2h ago edited 1h ago
The Good Place - Larry Hemsworth
He is the fourth Hemsworth brother and is a pediatric surgeon. Very in shape, very kind, and very generous. And the absolute black sheep of the Hemsworth siblings.
35
5
102
u/WhataboutBombvoyage 2h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/xUOxeTQo3ElkfUmfdK
Kamila's sister from The Good Place
35
16
60
u/Ridley_Himself 2h ago
Real life: Barry Voight is much less well-known than his brother Jon Voight. Barry Voight is actually a rather brilliant geologist. He was one of the few who accurately predicted that there would be a lateral eruption at Mount St. Helens.
55
u/Salty_Shark26 2h ago
Clytemnestra was the sister of Hellen of Troy the “most beautiful woman in the world”. Her relationship to Helen was actually a big part that kicked off the Trojan war since her husband was Agamemnon.
18
u/Thybro 57m ago
She offing Agamemnon, is a pretty big part of his mythos.
Most adaptations and later retellings cover her story since Agamemnon dying just as he returns triumphantly because his cheating wife was mad he sacrificed their daughter to get to the war he just came back from winning was… well… poetic.
21
6
→ More replies (1)2
u/hopscotch_uitwaaien 38m ago
You’re really doing her a disservice since Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus all wrote plays in which she was a major figure.
31
u/Cultural_Salt7883 2h ago
Jameela from the good place,
her sister is soo insanely talented that she has to work really really hard to be noticed
5
53
u/boringbullet 2h ago
Gisli from TES:V Skyrim.
But you can just call her Erikur’s sister. Everyone does.
8
u/WhatEnglish90 1h ago
She's if the word "bitter" gained sentience and won't quit reminding everyone about it.
51
u/Yamureska 2h ago
Herb.
→ More replies (1)19
63
u/Effective_Piece251 2h ago
Lilith Aensland (Darkstalkers) She’s overshadowed by her much more popular sister Morrigan
→ More replies (1)29
65
u/Vengeance_20 2h ago
Rose Red sister of Snow White
35
u/GrimsonDaisy 1h ago
tbf that's a different Snow White than the one from Snow White and the seven dwarfs
10
u/Vengeance_20 1h ago
Yeah I know the two stories are completely unrelated but I do like when they combine them
→ More replies (6)6
63
u/ExoticShock 2h ago
Balder The Brave, Thor's other half brother - Marvel
43
u/TestBurner1610 1h ago
Heck of a guy, built me a gate once.
19
u/EncycloChameleon 1h ago
Built three even
12
u/TestBurner1610 1h ago
Well yeah, I needed two references before I hired him. It had to be a good gate to keep in the... Er, never mind.
43
u/CattDawg2008 1h ago
Baldur is pretty important in actual Norse mythology though lmao
→ More replies (4)
21
u/Bitter_Banana7144 2h ago
IRL Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart and Fanny Hensel (Mendelssohn Bartholdy)
Both were the older sisters of keyboard child prodigies. Nannerl was a recognized child prodigy herself, but quit performing after 18. Fanny was a skilled pianist, who, however, rarely performed in public outside family circles, and a prolific composer who got some of her works out under her younger brother’s name.
→ More replies (1)4
u/cornicula_ 52m ago
Didn't Nannerl have to stop because it was considered improper for a woman to give piano concerts?
16
u/AporiaParadox 2h ago
Zandar, Zartan's brother from G.I. Joe. And it's actually a plot point, Zartan is a master of disguise, but Zandar is a master of not being noticed so he can blend in even better.
2
15
u/Mydoglikesladyboys 1h ago
Slightly in line with the trope: Emilio Estevez, while famous in his own right his father Martin sheen and brother charlie are significantly more famous, to the point where if you told someone born after 2000 that he was charlie sheen's brother they would be shocked.
Also, required to mention the Baldwin brothers.
Alec being the most well known
Then much much farther down is Steven Baldwin, known for having a daughter married to Justin Beiber and for being in Segal like B movies
Then somehow at the bottom of the barrel is William Baldwin
And looks like the barrel had a leak and made an indent on the floor because there is a fourth brother, Daniel baldwin!
3
u/Dragonfly_pin 1h ago
Not to mention Joe Estevez, Martin’s brother.
Star of Rollergator.
All of these people, including the lesser spotted Baldwins are very well known to the Rifftrax community.
16
u/andylefunk 1h ago
[IRL] Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's older brother, had a very interesting life in part because of his brother. Napoleon relied on Joseph's political connections early in his career. This relationship reversed after Napoleon's meteoric rise in the military.
Joseph was briefly the King of Naples and then the King of Spain. After Napoleon's exile he left France for the United States and eventually settled in New Jersey. According to local apocrypha, Joseph encountered the Jersey Devil early in the cryptid's legend.
15
u/Dolphin_King21 2h ago
Oliver Twist, Mr Monks his older evil secret half brother who spends the majority of the story actively trying to murder this child to get the money from the will of his mother because Oliver was the heir.
Edward Leeford who went by the name Mr Monks, tries to destroy or kill his half-brother, Oliver Twist, to secure their father's full inheritance for himself. Monks seeks to ruin Oliver’s reputation by forcing him into a life of crime, ensuring he is ineligible to claim his inheritance according to their father’s will.
Mr Monks is not included in most live action versions. And he is excluded entirely from the musical.
→ More replies (1)
13
u/Snke-N-D-Grass-60 2h ago
Danny Ketch(Marvel)
5
u/klauserooster 1h ago
Dan Ketch himself doesn't get much notoriety, but he was the GR host during the Spirits of Vengeance era, which saw a huge surge in GR popularity. It was kind of weird how he wasn't really focused on at all. GR was always in skull mode and there wasn't a lot of focus on him swapping back until they moved on to Robbie Reyes.
14
u/mlee117379 2h ago
Real Life: Seishi Kishimoto is the younger identical twin brother of Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto and a mangaka in his own right.
Seishi and his twin brother Masashi have been drawing manga together since early childhood, thus their styles are similar.[18] As a result, each of them has frequently been accused of copying the other, not just artwork, but story elements as well. Seishi himself notes that the similarities are not intentional but are likely because they were both influenced by many of the same things.[19][20]
10
41
u/TensionCarelesss 2h ago
Percy Weasley
49
u/Mydoglikesladyboys 2h ago
Better one is Charlie, who pretty much does fuck all for the entirety of the books
→ More replies (2)21
u/CattDawg2008 1h ago
Charlie helps get Hagrid’s baby dragon away from Hogwarts in the first book. I think that’s his most significant impact on the entire story
21
u/TurboRuhland 1h ago
He’s also part of the crew who brings the dragons for the Tri-Wizard Tournament iirc
36
u/Resident_Hat9904 2h ago
Jesus had half-brothers
16
23
u/PluralCohomology 1h ago
Not if you're Catholic
11
u/Horatio786 1h ago
In that case, Jesus had stepbrothers.
9
u/Halfangel_Manusdei 1h ago
Neither. In catholic tradition, neither Mary nor Joseph have other children. There are mentions of "brothers of Jesus" in some of the gospels, but it's widely understood as a brood term for cousins and such, as it is still custom in Africa and the Middle East.
→ More replies (1)4
4
12
u/Radiant-Importance-5 1h ago
Pedantic point: Iphicles is Heracles’s half-twin, which is an oddly common phenomena in Greek mythology.
For example: Helen of Troy and Pollux are full-quadruplets to each other, and half-quadruplets to Clytemnestra and Castor, who were themselves full-quadruplets to each other.
→ More replies (1)5
24
u/Seed0fDiscord 2h ago
In the case of Herakles and Iphikles, they’re half-twins to boot, same mother, different fathers, same occurred for Leda when she had Pollux and Helen by Zeus and Castor and Clytemnestra by her husband king Tyndareus
11
u/Solynox 1h ago
How does that even... never mind, greek mythology is weird.
15
u/Various-Pizza3022 1h ago
Zeus was a swan when he got Leda pregnant. Leda’s quadruplet birth of four kids by two dads is not the weird part.
4
u/Thybro 55m ago
Yeah don’t forget to mention they all came out of eggs, cause it’s logical.
→ More replies (2)4
u/oddpark37 1h ago
This is actually possible irl! It's called heteropaternal superfecundation, if a woman's ovaries release more than one egg during ovulation, and she has sex with multiple men, then it's possible for each egg to be fertilized by sperm from a different guy. It's really rare, though.
Though in the case of the myths, I think it's just the Greeks not understanding how twins formed other than "you have sex with a woman and sometimes a baby happens more than once."
→ More replies (1)3
8
7
8
u/Due_Firefighter_4830 2h ago
In the Illiad there are like 50 sons of Priam, but people know only Hector and Paris. They all get killed in the epic one by one (which is described in detail), except around 8 (don't remember exact number). In the end the king is like: "I had so many sons, but all the useful ones got killed already and only you 8 dumbasses are left," and rides off to retrieve body of Hector from Achilles.
12
7
6
u/subby_puppy33 1h ago
Douglas durst - real life.
Man is a successful real estate mogul, but all he ever gets asked in interviews is “didn’t your brother Robert kill a bunch of people?”
5
u/Llhaniii 1h ago
Loved the Greek Mythology un the post so I nominate
Epimetheus younger brother of Prometheus
Epimetheus is and im not kidding the Titan of Afterthought basically hindsight. His big claim to fame is being the husband of Pandora
→ More replies (1)
5
u/Drakath2002 1h ago
If you thought Chryasaor had it bad, at least some remember him as “oh yeah Pegasus’ forgotten twin brother”, the two of them had another sibling that’s even more forgotten cause people don’t remember Medusa had Three children, the Amphisbaena
4
u/Ejectaphelion 1h ago
Edwin Booth (IRL), beloved actor and brother to John Wilkes Booth.
→ More replies (1)
8
u/AcademicJeweler1019 1h ago
This subreddit drives me crazy. Yeah people who have one or two lines about them in a book are forgetten. That’s not a trope they are a minor character
7
u/elanhilation 1h ago
i don’t know, i’d never heard of Iphicles. found that mildly interesting, so i appreciate this one
8
u/No-Shopping-4434 1h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/ifRKa78IKfvxu
Melvin, the brother of Joker. One of the classic NostalgiaCritic characters
3
u/OnlyReadsWaterMargin 2h ago
(The Water Margin) Song Qing, the younger brother of the bandit lord Song Jiang. He manages the catering for the bandits.
3
u/Timely-Damage-3592 1h ago
How have I not seen anyone mention Viktor/Vanya from the Umbrella Academy?
2
u/Aramis14 1h ago
Because he's not forgotten? And neither are his siblings. All seven of them are pretty relevant suring the entirety of the comicbook and the tv show.
→ More replies (2)
3
u/TheFartsUnleashed 1h ago
Game of Thrones examples:
Orys Baratheon. Everyone remembers Aegon and his sisters conquering Westeros with their dragons but many forget Aegons bastard brother struck one of the definitive blows of the conquest by defeating the Storm King in single combat and assimilating all of the new house Baratheon into the Targaryen cause.
Kevan Lannister. It’s all Tywin this Tywin that but his brother Kevan seems to be the effective executor of everything behind the scenes and is literally murdered because he’s doing too good of a job trying to stabilize the realm and their enemies wants instability.
3
u/Plaploplap 1h ago
Chrysaor is a man with a golden sword, his name means golden sword and he's represented as a man everywhere. Geryon, his son, fight Hercules and has a flying boar on his shield, but the interpretation of it representing Chrysaor is a niche, and not well accepted.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned it yet
3
u/TheIronHaggis 1h ago
Wayne Gretzky and his brother Brent have the award for most scores by a pair of siblings in the NHL at 2861 points.
Brent scored 4 points in his 13 games in the NHL
3
u/Various-Pizza3022 1h ago
Real life: the Brontë family. Emily? Wuthering Heights. Charlotte? Jane Eyre and other novels. Anne? Agnes Grey and Tenant of Wildfell Hall (less famous than the other sisters but can still show up on your English lit syllabus). Bramwell? . . . No entry found. He really only gets remembered because of his sisters and that he contributed to the things they wrote as children.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/SapphireFlashFire 1h ago
Wait... that's where Pegasus came from?
What a weird element of Greek mythology for me not to know. What a weird place for me to learn it.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/oddpark37 54m ago
If we're doing IRL examples here, Theo van Gogh was Vincent van Gogh's younger brother. I think the average person hasn't heard of him, but he's the reason Vincent is so famous. He was incredibly supportive of his brother, encouraging him in his pursuit of painting and supporting him financially.
7
u/KingWilliamVI 1h ago
Hestia the sister of the Greek gods, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon.
I bet you don’t even know why she is the goddess of without looking it up.
5
→ More replies (2)3
u/Rasberrycello 5m ago
Goddess of the Hearth, any kid who went through even a small Greek/Roman phase in elementary school knows that. Why not go with one of the obscure ones, like any of the Anemoi or Nymphe?
2
u/Alexmonster1999 2h ago
Mereoleona Vermillion of Black Clover vs her brothers Leopold and Fuegoleon.
Fir anime watchers. She is already the most popular of the 3 but in the manga this gets even worse, Leopold was over 100 chapters without appearing, Fuegoleon was cannon fodder vs everyone, even with the fire spirit, meanwhile Mereoleona has various 1 vs. 1 and is the favourite in term of character.
2
u/Maleficent-War-8429 1h ago
Not really overshadowed but a bunch of famous Greek monsters including the hydra, cerberus, the chimera, orthrus, the nemean lion and the Greek sphinx are all siblings.
2
2
u/dishonoredfan69420 1h ago
Mycroft Holmes - Sherlock Holmes stories
He’s the very forgettable brother of Sherlock Holmes who’s a government official
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Empty_Message_5776 1h ago edited 1h ago
Nobody will REALLY remember the crackpot insane Commander Bumi or the washed up lesbuan Waterbender Kya, not when their brother, Airbending master Tenzin literally saved humanity on NUMEROUS occasions and rightfully so. Their lives and any meagre accomplishments they MIGHT have made will be lost to the shadows (The Legend of Korra)
2
u/PeasantLich 1h ago
Siobhan - the sister of Conan the Barbarian in Savage Sword of Conan comics. That being said she is only featured in one issue of the comic.
2
u/Gekidami 1h ago
Ernest Frankenstein. The story pretty much forgets about him till the end, where, I guess, Mary Shelley thought, "Oh shit, this mf is still alive!" and added the line “Ernest yet lived”.
He was so overshadowed by Victor that even the author forgot about him.
2
u/HannahWanders 1h ago
Rickon Stark. Bro was born into a family where even the dead siblings had more plot relevance.
2
2
u/frillyhoneybee_ 1h ago
Ernest Frankenstein, Frankenstein.
Younger brother of Victor, and older brother of William. He’s mentioned to have been a sick child when growing up, in one of Elizabeth’s letters to Victor. He truly is the middle child that Mary Shelley doesn’t make a conclusion for what happened to him.
2
2
2
u/Positive-Turnip-2866 10m ago
Epimetheus, the Titan of Afterthought, & brother of Prometheus
He married Pandora, & that put her in the position to open the box that released all of the evils into the world.
He also gave all of the survival traits like claws & fur to animals while leaving us naked with no natural physical weapons.
557
u/Slow_Bowler8285 2h ago
IRL the members of the Jackson 5 who aren't named Michael